on helplessness and the sea
by flybbfly
Summary: It's beer in Boston (or maybe tequila in Mexico, or vodka in a dorm room) that makes Theon Greyjoy fall in love with Robb Stark, jaeger that convinces him that crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a row boat is a good idea, and red wine in Amherst that makes him fuck Ramsay Snow, but it's coffee that brings Robb back to him. sequel/companion to "it takes an ocean not to break."


It's beer in Boston (or maybe tequila in Mexico, or vodka in a dorm room) that makes Theon Greyjoy fall in love with Robb Stark, jaeger that convinces him that crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a row boat is a good idea, and red wine in Amherst that makes him fuck Ramsay Snow, but it's coffee that brings Robb back to him.

Vices, Theon supposes, have always been his strong suit.

back.

Theon has an all right memory, but there are two things he can't pinpoint:

The exact moment that he falls in love with Robb Stark must happen sometime in his freshman year of college, but Theon doesn't know if it's the first time he sees him (the first day of freshman year, alight with possibility) or that first trip to Fenway Park (the way the air there is electric, thirty-seven thousand fans singing to a woman called Caroline in unison) or crashing in Robb's bed after one party or another (and Robb is always so accommodating, always lets Theon sleep in his bed even if he's throwing up), but he does know this:

There is no moment after their flight back from Mexico that he is not in love with Robb Stark. And he is in love with Robb in this ridiculously simple way, where he does not want to be with anyone ever again, and he does not want to be without Robb ever again. He is in love with him the way children are in love with their stuffed toys or their blankies; he is in love with him in this stupidly attached codependent way that he is positive cannot be healthy and yet it feels so good and it is so good for him. Robb is the reason Theon goes to class most days. Robb is the reason Theon does not over-drink. Theon opens his eyes most mornings hoping to see Robb, and on mornings where that isn't the case (when they have exams the next day and sleep in separate beds, or when Robb's home visiting family, or when Theon's angry and upset and Robb has not yet come to convince him to ungrit his teeth), Theon almost thinks he won't survive it.

But he does: he survives it every time, and Robb is always there for him in the end.

He thinks it has something to do with his family. Asha resented him when they were young and tolerates him now, and his brothers are soccer stars—one in the second division in Germany, the other lighting up the Championship—and his uncles and father were pioneers in bringing soccer to America. He's always been good at the sport, but he's sly, dirty, all elbows and knees and rolling on the ground. He's never been good enough to be professional, never as good as his brothers (or his sister, who's better than all of them), and they have let him know it. He's fast but not fast _enough_, creative but not creative _enough_, and no time spent lifting weights or running could make him fit enough to play professionally. He was fourteen when he decided he didn't want to play soccer professionally anyway, and when he goes to a school that isn't D1 he doesn't even regret it a little bit, not even when his uncles tell him he's wasting the future _they _told him he'd never have anyway.

It doesn't matter, anyway: the pick up games across the world have been enough. Robb has been enough. Theon's life is enough.

back.

The other thing he cannot pinpoint is the exact moment that he fell out of love with Robb Stark.

It's different with this: there is no one definitive moment that he can think of where he is no longer in love with Robb, but he knows that he is. He knows, for instance, when Ramsay presses him against the brick wall of the bar they meet at and kisses him, he knows that at that moment he is not in love with Robb. But after, when Ramsay kisses him on the mouth and bites down hard enough to hurt, when that happens Theon thinks that he was wrong, that he is in love with Robb Stark in this moment after all.

That's why, when Robb asks him why the bed smells like someone else (and his voice is empty and full of pain and curiosity and love and desire and so many things all at once that Theon thinks he might drown under it), that's why Theon tells the truth. And perhaps that's also why he spends the years after that punishing himself, filled with the bitterness of a forgotten boyfriend and the self-loathing of an adulterer.

forward.

He does not say a word to Robb the first time he sees him, after, because his heart is hammering against his ribcage so hard he can hear the music made from the vibrations, a sharp rat-a-tat that sounds rough against his ears, and for one bizarre moment he thinks he should start playing the drums, thinks he'll _have_ to start playing the drums for anyone to understand this, to understand how he feels right now in this moment with Robb looking like _that, _all auburn hair cut short at the sides, blue eyes, pale skin, broad shoulders-

Robb says, "Hi."

Theon thinks he is going to throw up, and so he raises a gloved hand in silent greeting and takes deliberate steps out of the shop to convince himself that he's fine, that he does not under any circumstances need to expel the contents of his stomach onto the sidewalk, and that he is definitely not still in love with Robb Stark.

back.

They fit together so well because they are both quiet.

Not really entirely, of course: Theon is loud when he's drunk, and Robb is animated and big and shouts and laughs too loud all the time, but they're the same in that they're both quiet where it counts.

Robb gets angry with a quiet fury, the sort that terrifies anyone who looks at him. He is not angry often, is typically in a pretty good mood, but when he is, it is so quiet, everything bubbling just under the surface, that Theon has to look away or risk getting burned.

Theon is not the same: when Theon is angry, Robb knows. Theon sulks and bitches and grumbles and throws things and shouts, and he gets over it and he's fine after. But Robb gets angry quietly.

It is this quiet fury that Theon sees in Robb when he tells him about sleeping with Ramsay, and it is replaced over the next week while they try to separate their impossibly entangled lives with a sort of quiet devastation that tears Theon apart.

"I can't be in the same place as you anymore," Robb says. "I mean—not just the same apartment."

"What?"

"I just—I don't want to be anywhere where you are."

It is not the same for Theon, but he doesn't say anything, because what Theon does quietly is entirely different from what Robb does quietly. Robb told him, once, when they were lying together in a tiny bunk in a hostel in Armenia, that he loved quietly. Theon didn't understand at the time, but he thinks it makes sense now, with Robb staring at him, those big blue eyes betraying what he hasn't said, it makes sense: Theon loves quietly, and perhaps he didn't tell Robb the truth enough, and perhaps that's why they fell apart, and for a moment he thinks he can fix it but then Robb looks away and says, "I get New York City," and that's when Theon can tell that they are finally irreparably broken.

forward.

Menthol cigarettes both smell and taste worse than regular cigarettes. There is something about the false coldness in them that makes Theon gag a little.

He meets Jeyne Westerling at the coffeeshop, and he doesn't know it's her until Sansa introduces them.

"This is Robb's girlfriend," Sansa says. "Jeyne, this is Robb's-"

"I know who Theon is," Jeyne says, and there isn't a trace of jealousy in her eyes. Theon is sort of shocked when he sees only pity there. "It's good to meet you. I've heard a lot about you."

"Good things, I hope," Theon says, and there's a moment where he might crack a smile to show Jeyne that he's joking, but the moment passes and she only smiles politely in response.

"Well, I've got to get going. Sansa-"

"I'll come out in a second."

Sansa stands there silently until Jeyne is out of the coffeeshop, and then she says, "Theon, don't you dare ever hurt my brother again."

"He hurt me first," Theon says, and it's the first time he says it out loud and it hurts him all over again because it's truer than he thought.

"Robb never got over you."

"Jeyne is pretty."

"Theon."

"It's over, Sansa. It was over before Ramsay."

Sansa just looks up at him, all big blue eyes and frowning just a bit. "You were an asshole to him," she says, suddenly, roughly, and leaves.

Theon sighs and sits down on the softest couch in the coffeeshop.

back.

The nature of their relationship is this:

In high school, Theon was rarely seen without headphones in. In class he'd tuck them into his sleeves and press an ear against his palm. He wore them to bed. He wore them in the hallways. He wore them at parties.

After he met Robb—it's not that Theon stops listening to music, because he doesn't. He listens to better music, and more of it, but he listens to it with the headphones pulled out of their jack and his eyes trained on Robb, and there are places where their music tastes intersect and places where they don't, but all the same the nature of their relationship is listening to music together, and that, Theon thinks, is what makes it all worth it.

forward.

Theon spent most of his time on the Atlantic Ocean—when he wasn't throwing up or dealing with infections in his fingers from wounds he'd received from Ramsay—writing letters to his family and to Robb, so it makes sense that now that he's back in Amherst with gmail at his disposal that he writes emails instead:

_Robb-_

_I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry_

_Are you sure you want to leave this page? Your message has not been sent._

_Yes, leave this page._

*

_Robb-_

_It wasn't my fault._

_Are you sure you want to leave this page? Your message has not been sent._

_Yes, leave this page._

*

_Robb-_

_I miss you like Mexico. I miss you like the Pacific Ocean. I miss you like the west coast._

_Are you sure you want to leave this page? Your message has not been sent._

_Yes, leave this page._

*

_Robb-_

_The most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway is that it's you, and that you're standing in the doorway._

_I wanna be yours I wanna be yours I wanna be yours._

_Listen to AM. It reminds me of college and you._

_Are you sure you want to leave this page? Your message has not been sent._

_Yes, leave this page._

back.

Ramsay splits Theon's fingers open two days before Theon plans to row the Atlantic. The wounds are bad enough to need stitches, but Ramsay's also got him terrified enough that he doesn't go to the doctor's, and anyway he doesn't have health insurance now that he's quit his job, so he wraps his fingers in an Ace bandage and hopes for the best.

The skin on his fingers starts to itch soon after, and he thinks that means it's healing, and he throws on some seawater to disinfect it without thinking about what other bacteria might be in the ocean. It's a few days later that most of the skin on some of his fingers is blackened, and he ties them off with string he's ripped off his own sweater and hopes his blood won't get infected.

In the end it does, but he's back in LA—his sister plays for Galaxy Ladies, and she gets him to the doctor's and the doctor saves his fingers but some of the skin grafts don't take and Theon puts gloves on when he leaves the hospital that first time and doesn't take them off in public again.

forward.

He sees Robb come into the coffeeshop in his peripheral vision, so he sits down with his latte and determinedly does not look at him. But Robb does not come over to talk: instead, he completely ignores Theon, takes his coffee outside, and starts smoking.

It takes Theon fifteen minutes to convince himself to go outside, and when he has there is Robb, Robb looking all—all _exquisite_, the way he always does, the way he always _has_, and Theon's breath catches in his throat for a moment.

There's space on the bench next to Robb, and he almost sits down, but Robb moves over, just infinitesimally, just enough that Theon thinks maybe it's not the best of ideas.

"Those'll kill you," he says instead.

Robb looks up at him, exhales a stream of smoke directly at his face, and Robb was never spiteful but there it is, the fleeting cloud separating them, evidence of what Theon did to him. There's silence for a moment, and then Robb stubs out the cigarette with the toe of his shoe and for a second Theon thinks that perhaps they'll be all right, but then Robb takes out another cigarette, puts it in his mouth, and lights it, all without looking away from Theon.

"Really?" he says at last. "I hadn't heard."

Theon stares at him, trying to remember whether the lines at the corners of his mouth were always there or if they're new. Whether he parts his hair on the opposite side now—he does, Theon thinks, and it suits him.

"We decided Massachusetts was mine," Robb says.

"No, we didn't. It was neutral ground."

"I don't remember making that deal. I told you I wanted Boston."

"We're not in Boston," Theon says, and it's so ridiculous that he almost laughs. It's so stupid, that Robb could claim Boston and then not distinguish between the two, between Amherst and Boston, because natives of either would resent the conflation.

"I thought you knew I meant the surrounding areas too."

"Why would I think that? I specified everything. Pacific Ocean. The Great Lakes."

"All you specified were fucking oceans," Robb says, and there's the spite again. He puts out his cigarette, but this time he doesn't light another one, and Theon gets that he's going to leave.

It comes before Theon can control it or even decide what he's going to do:

"Wait," he says.

Robb waits, and it makes Theon's breath catch, but he doesn't have anything to say so he just stares at Robb.

"Get the fuck out of Amherst," Robb says. "Or just don't—just stop coming here."

"You don't get this place," Theon says.

"Fine," Robb says. "_Fine._"

forward.

_Robb,_

_I'm sorry. _

_It was your fault, too, but I'm sorry._

_Are you sure you want to leave this page? Your message has not been sent._

_Yes, leave this page._

back.

It is on the Atlantic Ocean that Theon realizes, with a sick twisted feeling in his stomach, that no matter what happens to him here or back on land or any time in the future, he will spend the rest of his life missing Robb.

forward.

They became domestic quickly the first time they were together, and so it makes sense that they revert to familiarity immediately when they sleep together again.

It happens because Robb talks to Theon in that bar and it's like a challenge and Theon is sort of drunk and Robb's mouth has this funny sort of curl it never used to have and Theon has forgotten how it feels to touch Robb Stark.

Waking up next to him feels familiar, though, so familiar that there's a moment where Theon forgets they're not together anymore. They brush their teeth together the way they used to, and then they make coffee together and Robb knows without asking that Theon wants his toast extra-dark with too much butter.

"It's like riding a bicycle," Robb says.

"What is?"

"You," Robb says, and Theon tilts his head to his side and finds that he cannot look away despite how sick he suddenly feels.

"Sansa told me we just had to fuck and we'd be civil to each other again," Robb says, as if it could ever be that easy—as if Theon could ever be civil to this person, who he is just now realizing he is really, really _not _out of love with, no matter what he told himself when Ramsay fucked him that first time or when Ramsay hit him that first time. "It was nice to see you again. Thanks for the coffee."

Robb is almost to the door before the quiet pain raging in Theon's gut comes to the surface, and he hits Robb in the eye and regrets it immediately after, adrenaline flowing through him even as he opens his mouth to apologize, cowers a little in anticipation of Robb's retaliation-

But Robb doesn't retaliate. He just turns and leaves, and that makes Theon sick, too.

back.

Robb Stark is the stupid kind of beautiful that real human beings shouldn't ever get to be. He is the kind of beautiful that people make statues over. It isn't fair that he's only human, Theon thinks, because humans die and their beauty fades and it isn't fair that everyone in the world doesn't get to see the glory of Robb Stark's furrowed brow, of the way he squints his eyes a little when he doesn't understand something and bites his lip when he's trying to scribble down notes before the professor changes the slide.

Theon realizes this a week into their first semester at Amherst, when Robb is staring at the board in the econ class they have together. He traces the outline of Robb's profile with his eyes and becomes intimately familiar with the way his forehead protrudes just so over the straight line of his nose and the full pout of his mouth. He understands in a way he does not understand anything else—certainly not econ—that that one particular auburn curl on Robb Stark's head will always fall in that particular way (until Robb gets a little older and starts playing with different products and different hair cuts, but that will happen later: now he is still eighteen and wild-looking). He memorizes the blue of Robb's irises before he learns the difference between a supply curve and a demand curve. All of this he discovers before he remembers Robb Stark's name.

"Do you want to form a—I don't know, a study group or something?" Robb asks him at the end of class. "I'm Robb, by the way—we met at a party last week. I don't know if you remember."

"Sorry," Theon says, grinning a little bashfully. "I was really wasted-"

"Yeah, I noticed. Looked fun. I was taking care of my roommate, though, so-"

"Aw, that's no fun."

"It was alright. He's alright."

Theon feels the sharp flare up of jealousy before he can place what exactly that is, and beams at Robb instead of voicing it. "Are you free tonight?"

"Frost at six? Want to get dinner first?"

"Yeah, that sounds—that sounds nice."

Robb smiles at him and they trade phone numbers, and that's how it starts.

forward.

Because Robb has always been impossible to resist, Theon kisses him the next time he sees him, right out in the middle of the street, and Robb stares at him, dumbfounded, and ignores Theon's invitation to dinner.

Theon gets drunk that night and calls Ramsay, and he can hear the leer over the phone and when Ramsay comes over he feels the sick feeling in his gut, the one he's been trying to suppress since he came back to Amherst.

He opens the door for him anyway.

back.

In Israel, they stay at an apartment with a roof that affords them a view of old Tel Aviv, and Robb kisses him there, right out in the open, and Theon laughs against his mouth and can't stop shaking.

In love, he decides as Robb presses a hickey onto his neck, in love is the only thing worth being.

forward.

They become domestic again very shortly after they get back together.

Theon is at Robb's all the time, and the place is really much nicer than the one they used to share and that Theon lives in now. Theon feels like he spends nearly every night at Robb's, sometimes just hanging around watching TV while Robb works or bringing his own work home with him now that he has a proper job in Amherst, now that Robb's not the only one working sixty hour weeks, now that they're on sort of even footing and making the same amount of money and working roughly similar hours.

Theon keeps comparing it to before, to when they were young and stupid and passionately in love, but he never feels like it was better than it is now: they settle into an easy familiarity quickly, with Robb bringing home dinner some nights and Theon cooking other nights, and some nights only one of them is home and some nights they fuck slowly on the couch, all work abandoned. Some days they have lunch together, but more often they just meet for coffee breaks mid-afternoon, grin at each other, make out a little, and return to their respective offices.

Theon's favorite part of day is still breakfast with Robb, because regardless of how late either of them stays up they both still have to wake up for work every day, and most mornings this involves one of them waking the other with a tantalizing blow job, but some mornings they fuck and others, when they're in a hurry, they juts sit at the kitchen table beaming at each other over their cups of coffee.

He does something he never imagined himself doing before, which is that he accidentally moves into Robb's apartment by gradually bringing all his stuff over. In the end, Robb asks him what he did with the other apartment and Theon says, "What do you mean?" and Robb stares at him.

"I mean, did you sell it? Or are you subletting? Because I feel like I'm owed half that money-"

"I still live there," Theon says, and then looks around at the apartment, at his books mingled with Robb's in the shelves and his papers scattered over the coffee table and a black sock he is pretty sure isn't Robb's on the rug next to a massive manila folder.

Robb does not say anything except a raised eyebrow that says really quite a lot.

"Oh," Theon says, and then, "Would you mind if I—if I moved in here?"

He feels himself grinning before Robb's even said yes.

"I still want the money I'm owed from that apartment," Robb says. "Especially because you haven't been paying rent."

"Oh," Theon says again, and Robb laughs, and Theon can't resist him anymore so he seizes Robb by the front of the shirt and kisses him so hard that Robb gasps for breath against his mouth.

"You're beautiful," Robb says, and then, softly "I love you."

"I can't believe I moved in here by accident."

"You're an idiot, I think."

"Definitely."

Robb stares at him a little expectantly, and then Theon grins, kisses him again. "I love you too, fucking idiot. Of course I do. Do I even have to-"

"Yes," Robb says, and kisses him again. "Yes. Always. Say it all the time."

"I love you," Theon says, and Robb pressed against him feels like a promise.

back.

_Dear Robb,_

_I let Ramsay fuck me because I missed you, not because I didn't love you. I still love you. I love you more than oceans. I love you more than saltwater. I love you more than tequila and burritos at three in the morning. I love you more than Japan. I miss you in the same way people miss phantom limbs: I keep thinking you're still there. I wake up some mornings in my row boat thinking you're draped over me, big limbs everywhere the way you always used to be, but then I realize it's just a tarp and I'm floating floating floating away..._

_I wanted to row the Atlantic Ocean so badly. I don't know how the idea got put in my head but it was there and I wanted to do it more than anything. I'm here now but I need to go back because I think my fingers are falling off and I haven't stopped throwing up and I'm almost out of water. I'm not far from the coast. I spent my whole life trying to stay close to the coast so I'd always be near the ocean, and now I'm on the ocean and I'm still too close to the coast. _

_I miss you like the stars miss the moon during an eclipse. I miss you like Paul misses John. I miss you like alcohol, or like standing up without the fear of capsizing. I miss you like soccer. _

_Love—always love,_ _Theon_

He stopped worrying about polluting the ocean after two days in his row boat, and tossing this paper ball overboard doesn't bother him, either.

forward.

It takes Robb a year to quit smoking.

He stops chain-smoking almost immediately after they get back together, but six months into it he's still sneaking out every couple of hours for a smoke, and three months after that it's dwindled but the moment he so much as sniffs alcohol he's dug a pack out from his nightstand or under the sink or bummed a cigarette off a stranger and has it in his mouth. They're never menthols anymore because Jeyne's gone, but they smell bad all the same, and though Theon sometimes smokes with him when they're drinking, he mostly tries to discourage it.

"I'm not going to let you blow me if you've got cancer in your mouth, Robb," he always says, grinning, and Robb always says back, "Better get me some mouthwash, then."

Still—he tries, and he relapses a few times, and once, right after Ned Stark dies, Theon catches Robb smoking in the bathroom, four cigarette butts already in a plastic cup on the sink.

"Robb," Theon says gently, tugging the last cigarette out of Robb's mouth, and it is then that Robb breaks down into Theon's shoulder in a way that Theon has never known Robb Stark to do. "Brush your teeth Robb, come on, we've got to go to the funeral and you don't want your mum to smell you."

That only makes Robb's shoulders heave harder, and it is all Theon can do to hold on.

back.

Theon's favorite ever memory with Robb is a simple one:

He's blowing Robb, and Robb's just made this really ridiculous noise that has Theon laughing at the exact moment that Robb comes, and so there's all this cum on Theon's face now because it didn't all get into his mouth because he opened his mouth and choked out a laugh.

As if to get him back for it, Robb positions himself to ride Theon, but Theon pulls him down on top of him, kissing his neck, and Robb says, "You're perfect at that—you're perfect," and Theon shudders so hard that he's sure he'll buck Robb off. He keeps thinking about those words as he fucks Robb and then later, when he's not fucking Robb anymore, and he thinks the memory'll help him get hard so he can jack off but it just makes him sad instead.

forward.

Theon gets drunk and calls Ramsay again only a few days after, and Ramsay leaves him with a black eye, shuddering and shaking on the floor of his apartment.

He sees Robb the next day.

"Let's go to dinner," Robb says. It comes out rushed, breathless, before they even exchange hellos.

Theon can't resist him anymore, and so he moves in closer, to close he can almost feel Robb's body under his fingers, and it feels familiar.

"I can only do tonight."

"Okay. That's—okay. Seven, at the Lumber Yard?"

Theon's never been to the Lumber Yard despite years of living in Amherst. "All right," he says. "See you then."

*

Robb holds his hand after dinner and it feels like home.


End file.
